A. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to network monitoring systems and, more specifically, a method for monitoring mission critical network infrastructures and providing application support for client networks.
B. Description of the Related Art
As we approach the new millennium, computer networks have migrated from single server systems to mission critical network infrastructures. A mission critical network infrastructure is a network that runs an electronic commerce site or provides real time data to a plurality of users. These network infrastructures generally must remain online at all times and can afford little or no down time. Devices on these networks usually are comprised of many different types and brands of network devices, such as Windows NT servers, Unix servers, routers, and terminal servers. For example, if, per chance, the Unix billing system were to fail, quite possibly, an entire electronic commerce site could lose large sums of money.
What makes maintaining these systems even harder is the fact that the devices on the network are generally proprietary and do not conform with any one standard. For example, to configure a firewall from outside a private network, a nonstandard port may be used, such as port 2058. In fact, even devices that use standard ports sometimes use different methods to indicate availability. For example, a router may use well-known SNMP traps to indicate availability, whereas a well-known telnet server provides a xe2x80x9cloginxe2x80x9d prompt when a client connects to a port 23. Moreover, if a network contains 50 telnet servers, even though they respond the same way, monitoring each one becomes an arduous task.
Although current monitoring systems can monitor a particular machine or service, currently there is no way to monitor entire networks efficiently. With large mission critical networks, even if the administrator ultimately locates a problem with a device or service, it may take some time for the administrator to determine the cause of the problem.
It is therefore desirable to improve existing network monitoring systems.
Methods and systems consistent with the present invention solve the limitations of current monitoring systems by automatically and completely monitoring various networks devices and services. Specifically, a network monitoring system monitors all services and conditions on various networks. Moreover, the network monitoring system provides advance warnings of potential failures by examining log files and may diagnose any problems that may surface.
In accordance with methods and systems consistent with the present invention, a method is provided for monitoring a network with at least one service on the network. The method spawns a process for each one of the services to monitor, and monitors a service with the spawned process. When a problem is detected with the service, the method notifies an accounting server.